Friday, October 22, 2004

Outsourcing Medical Treatment

MSNBC reports a story of man who outsourced his heart surgery to India for a fraction of what it would have cost him in the US.

Taking his cue from cost-cutting U.S. businesses, Staab last month flew about 7,500 miles to the Indian capital, where doctors at the Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre -- a sleek aluminum-colored building across the street from a bicycle-rickshaw stand -- replaced his balky heart valve with one harvested from a pig. Total bill: about $10,000, including roundtrip airfare and a planned side trip to the Taj Mahal.

Staab is one of a growing number of people known as "medical tourists" who are traveling to India in search of First World health care at Third World prices. Last year, an estimated 150,000 foreigners visited India for medical procedures, and the number is increasing at the rate of about 15 percent a year, according to Zakariah Ahmed, a health care specialist at the Confederation of Indian Industries.

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